Olin Dows's heritage shaped his life and his career in a major way. His parents were wealthy: his father Tracy Dows the son of a New York City grain merchant, and his mother Alice Olin the daughter of a prominent family from Rhinebeck, New York. When Olin was four, his parents acquired an estate along the Hudson. Much of Dows's life was to be spent in this area. His father documented the development of the property and the construction and furnishing of the mansion he built there with an exhaustive set of photographs, recently compiled as part of a book by David Byars, Our Time at Foxhollow Farm. Neighbors of the Dows family included Vincent Astor, who upon the sinking of the Titanic became the richest young man in the country, and the Roosevelts. Franklin Roosevelt became a friend of Olin's and a significant factor in his professional career. Robert Chanler, who was a member of the Astor family, was an artist known for his painted screens, including ones shown at the Armory Show of 1913 and very well-received there. As Olin developed as an artist, he picked up on both Chanler's medium and his choice of subjects, which often included dramatically-placed wild animals. Olin's parents supplied him with a drawing tutor who took him to New York museums and art shows. Harvard was a poor choice for a practicing artist, although Dows did develop his views on the major role of art in civilization through the art historians he encountered during his two years there. Meanwhile he explored the museums of Boston and attended classes at MIT in sculpture, life drawing and architectural drawing. Leaving Harvard without a degree, he went to Paris and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, albeit with no serious focus. At this point in his career he found inspiration in sources ranging from Leonardo to Maxfield Parrish. He did have a few touchstones, notably William Blake. Back in the United States, he spent two years at the Yale Art School and another two years at the Art Students League in New York. There he had Thomas Hart Benton as a professor and future luminaries such as David Smith, Clyfford Still and Jackson Pollock as classmates. But what influenced him most was a summer in Mexico where he met Diego Rivera and encountered a whole new aesthetic. By 1930 Dows felt ready to go out on his own; he returned to Rhinebeck and painted regional landscapes and natural features in oils and watercolors. His work sold well, at least for the Depression economy, and he was content with his profession. After the stock market crash, Olin's father moved to London, and Olin moved with his mother to Washington, DC. Given his friendship with FDR, it was natural that he would get involved with the art programs of the New Deal. He helped shape the Public Works Art Project and became a director of the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture, managing projects for the Eastern half of the United States. While Dows's own taste was conservative, he enjoyed interacting with the ambitious young artists who flocked to the federal programs. With the death of Olin's father in 1937, Fox Hollow was sold to Vincent Astor, and Olin and his mother took full control of her estate in nearby Glenburn. A trip to Egypt energized Dows much as his sojourn in Mexico had done, and he completed a number of paintings of local scenes there. Back in Rhinebeck, he received commissions for Post Office murals in Rhinebeck and Hyde Park, both of which involved direct consultation with FDR. At the time WWII broke out, Dows was working in Washington, where he advocated for the creation of the Army's Artist Correspondents Unit, which he joined after enlisting in 1942. The unit was defunded before Dows saw action, but he did see significant action — at Normandy, in the Battle of the Bulge and in the American linkup with Soviet forces — armed with a notebook, a camera and a rifle. He was given a medal for enabling the surrender of 56 German soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge. Returning from the war, Dows produced a book on Roosevelt's life in Hyde Park. Then, to his friends' surprise, at age 46, he married. His wife was a Chilean diplomat, with whom he lived half-time in Rhinebeck and half-time in Chile. His painted screens depicting scenes in Chile were an artistic and commerical success.St. Lo Patrol, 1943Wooden Screen, 1936
Critical Analysis
Dows's wealth enabled him to float above the tides that severely challenged the careers of most Depression-Era artists. He never showed great interest in the major trends of modern art but stuck with his own vision, rooted firmly in his natural environment. Hence he was never a ground-breaker but always a very solid, competent, productive and interesting artist. His role as a military artist who worked directly with troops on the ground earned him enormous respect. And his personality made him a good administrator and admired friend.
